Mark your calendar!

The DFL Party is pleased to announce the

2009 Founders Day Dinner
and
DFL Governor Candidate Fair

Saturday, September 26, 2009
6:30pm
Minnesota State Fairgrounds
Education Building

More details to follow soon, but please save the date
so you can join us on September 26!

It's one of those days.  The days where several of the major line engineers in the aging railway that is my body decide to take a bank holiday and shut down.  And this body is a German railway too, not some high speed American light rail with aerodynamic cars and low-friction glides.  No tech-forward Japanese Bullet Train.  We're talking WWII, rusted at the ties, built in the briny sea air of Kiel or Bremen.  Whipped by the cold winds off the North Sea, groaning with the burden of history.  Train.  Creeeeeeeeak!  And the bank holiday wasn't even on the calendar.

With an illness like mine, life is unpredictable.  The pain and the fatigue come when they will.  It's like light rain--not threatening in itself, but then all of a sudden there's the flash flood and your tracks are underwater.  Stop the train!   I usually get little signs.  Steep Cliff Approaching.  But I rarely heed them.  So, I feel up for a climb. 

In my latest flare-up, it started with a dream that I was in a foreign labor camp, forced to break rocks while at the same time watching the children.  That's a tell right there you're feeling a bit overwhelmed and fatigued.  Next came the slow, rhythmic increase in the tempo of my constant pain, throbbing, louder, louder, pulsing, like a bassoon building themes in a Mozart Concerto.  The crescendo of the pain blunts out other sounds next, and I get "selective hearing:"
Me:                      Steve, what are you and Reuben munching on?
Steve:                  Vicodin.
Me:                      Did you say, 'Vicodin?!'
Steve:                  Uh, no.  I said, 'Mike-N-Ikes.'
Chugga chugga chugga chugga...Choooooooo!

There's denial, bargaining.  Like in grief, no one wants to give in to a physical betrayal.  Even Blue Collar Hubby has his tells (Hey that pain wrinkile on your forehead is really deep today).  Thanks, Buddy.   He also has his dismissals (C'mon, just one more hour of driving and we'll be to Canada!).  Huffa huffa huffa toot toooooooooooot....

So I hang up the sign, the blue sign, the stigmata of the lesser-abled.  I take the looks from the skeptics who are trying to imagine what is wrong with me, and why today I can't park in Zebra Lot 12 like they did.  No unnecessary travel, no deliveries, no panoramic view of the mountains as I sail over the trestle in the fresh air of altitude.  The bridge is washed out for now, and the collectors of fares are all at the Pub having a pint on me.

An early rise time (Toe popping out of bed at 4a.m. exclaiming, “Let’s go to the box store and see zackly how it works!”—whatever that means), a crisp blue-skyed Minnesota morning and apple hunger all led us to make a Saturday morning visit to Minnesota Harvest Farms near Jordan.   We were able to horse around, get our goat on, sample early variety apples (including the new MN variety called the 1681-- a smaller, less pricey version of the delicious Honeycrisp) inside the loud warehouse-sized cooler, pick up some wild chokecherry syrup and MN gooseberry jam for future pre-dawn breakfasts, step in a lot of cow poopy, and be stunned by a fantastic panaoramic view of the Minnesota River Valley.

Good Minnesota morning to all!






































Roo, stunned.

Call up the craftsmen
Bring me the draftsmen
Build me a path from cradle to grave
And I'll give my consent
To any government
That does not deny a man a living wage
 --Billy Bragg, Between the Wars

Oh man, you know me!  I've always gotten worked up about healthcare issues and labor issues--how can I help myself?  I come from bright people who worked themselves to death for the chance to provide their children with first rate education, healthcare and homelife--oh yeah, freedom of thought and belief, too.  It's the typical immigrant story--you probably have one too somewhere in your personal dossier. Don't we all?  But now everyone is getting worked up about healthcare issues and labor issues, and I realize all the gnashing of teeth is giving me grade one migraines and perhaps an ulcer.  Every day there is another hostile attack on Obama's proposed health care plan, another cry of socialism, another agressive defense.  It's loud, it's everywhere, it's exhausting.  

And it's really bad.  Don't be afraid to admit it--if you are under 65 you've never seen anything like this before and you are sweating in your boots a little.  How can we not when such things are happening in our world?  Even the Amish are going down the financial tubes, reports MSNBC. These are people who grow their own food, sew their own clothes and basically make most of the rest of us look like greedy, materialistic infidels.   Pretty much all they do is work, pray, work, pray, and raise barns for each other. They live their faith actively, they husband animals, educate their children, live green without effort and love their neighbors as themselves.  Many of them have had to turn to skilled factory labor to survive since the death of the small family farm, and now there is no work for them (or anyone else) there either.  The folks who brought you the anglo-American kibbutz are going out of business.  Where's the social justice in that?

I am not a savvy policy wonk, and I can't see the future.  But I do know the past.  I know prior to FDR's New Deal Social Security Act that 9 out of 10 of the elderly died in abject poverty.  I know that without President Clinton's Family Medical Leave Act, toothless as it is, my family and others like mine would be living in someone's basement to get by.  I also know that the tireless defense of my father's rights to a living wage and a quality comprehensive health plan was launched by his labor union (for him, the UAW or United Automotive and Aeorspace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America) was a major factor in what separated us from a life of privation and despair .

And I know that all these great moments in history were greeted with fierce conservative opposition and the anti-socialism war cry. Can't we finally agree that pulling yourself up by your bootstraps will never be possible for some people, and if you help someone raise their barn, they'll be there to raise yours when the time comes?

While shooting some photos of my favorite East Side mural just two blocks from home, I had an interesting talk with a curious carload of gansters.  Now, living where I do, and being who I am, I've discoursed with gangsters many times before, so that's not new.  In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, I came to the aid of a young ganster out of gas on the side of the road.  Granted, his car was more tricked out than a Liberace suit and of higher value than the house I live in, but he had fallen on hard ganster times and run his tank dry.  At the end of our time together he was crying at a gas pump and telling me he was a bad man, and that his mother would whup him if she knew.  I invited him to our church, but he never showed.

It's an eye-opener to know it's difficult days out there, even for
a gangster.

Anyway, I'm taking these mural shots in a gravel lot next to Payne Ivy Grocery (and I use the word grocery here with an East Side caveat: this is a place you can buy bread, milk, eggs, Koolaid packets, onions and American cheese slices--the rest of the inventory belongs to cigarettes and smoking paraphernalia, candy, energy drinks, highly caffeinated sodas, and what I can only describe as "car jewelry") when up drives an extremely pimped Lincoln. 

The young man on the passenger side of the Lincoln (due to his attire, I will call him "Chains") leans out.
"Yo!"  says Chains.  "You takin' pitchers of the wall?"
"Yes," says I.
Chains appears excited.  "No *bleep*?!"
"No...kidding," I answer.
Another gangster I will call "Backseat" leans up and out the window.  "What for?"  He is smoking a very small cigar, I hope.
Now the driver, best described as "Hat," chimes in, apparently impatient to get involved.  "Yeah."
I pause.  What the heck.  "I'm writing about it," says I, trying to focus the camera and respect the force field around the Lincoln at the same time.
"No *bleep*?" says Chains.  "For the paper and *bleep*?"
"For my blog, " I say, reviewing my shots.  "I like really like this mural."
"*Bleep*" declares Chains.  He waves his arm out the window, pointing at the whole wall.
"Be sure and get that part there--that's the best part."
"Sure," I say.  This is taking a long time.
"Awright," adds Backseat.  "I'm gonna read that then."
I write down my URL on the back of a Lakeshore Learning reciept, the only thing in my pocket besides my car keys with panic button.  They drive away.

I hop back in the car and continue the 8 miles north to the part of town where I buy our real groceries:  fresh produce, gluten-free pastas, soy milk, flour.  The architecture there is pretty dull, though, and hardly anybody ever leans out the window to talk with me about the arts.

Every morning at the table we sing This is the Day  as our breakfast blessing, and have since Toe was born.  Now that he is a mature 4 years old, he contests with a “No singing, Mommy!  Pray please!”  He clasps his hands and bows his head as we say our thanks to God.  Reuben, a new Christian, prefers the singing.  He clasps his hands too and bows his head, and with closed eyes he tosses his hair and dances wildly in his chair chanting “Thank you thank you thank you!”  There are no photos to go with such moments.  They are impressed on the heart, as they should be.

With the corruption of the world all around me, the worries of daily survival and the painful betrayals of the body, it is good to be reminded of those things the world can’t corrupt.  When I am nearly apoplectic at the cost of healthful food at the grocer, the Holy Spirit will bring to me images of the utter privation so many children in the world suffer.  He changes my focus from the frightening total of my bill to thanksgiving for all his promises.  Led to pray in a parking lot, I lay my head down on the steering wheel and beg the god of mercy to do for his children what I can’t, and to give me life and strength to do what I can.

The East Side:  we love it with the love of a mother for her charismatic, beautiful, felonius child.  Only here would a people celebrate an historic poor immigrants' squatter camp with a park, then name stately neighborhoods and coffee shops after the wooded ravine where said immigrants cooked and tented.
Ah, Swede Hollow, we revere ye.  At the bottom of a swail beneath the iconic Hamm's Brewery, below the bluff where the brewer baron built himself, his family and his friends some of the most beautiful Victorian homes this side of Summit Avenue, there is the place for tree-lined hikes and hobo camps.  And don't forget to have a cup of the best coffee in St. Paul, the "Cubana" (complete with chocolate cigar), at The Swede Hollow Cafe after you've hopped off the boxcar (between us, though, the author and her friends prefer the laid back atmosphere of Polly's Coffee Cove, with its medicocre coffee, solicitous Russian barista, mismatched chairs and rainforest-meets-Rice Lake rummage sale decor).

There is so much to tell about where we live, next month there will be a seperate feature page of the website called Living on the Eastside (still under construction).  I hope you will watch for and enjoy it, wherever you live.  Of course, we do have our own  'hood newspaper, our own Facebook group with over 2300 members, our own Consulate (okay, it's the Consulado de Mexico, but there is Diplomat parking right across the street from the check-cashing place and the bail bondsmen), and even our own lawn sign ("East Side Pride!") in a cheerful and optimistic green. 

This summer BlueCollar Hubby and I have noticed a significant loss of local East Side businesses we frequent (local=within walking distance).  If you know us, you know how much we prefer to buy from the "folks" instead of "the man," and with the busted economy this is harder.  Bob-from-Payne-Furniture sold us our bunkbeds below cost--sadly he is moving out of the hood due to bad business.  We have never bought anything from him before, but the kids stop in his store to say howdy and worry his bouncier display items a couple times a week.  Bob and BCH have "man talk" while I go the extra half block to Payne Ivy Grocery for a bag of onions, where I typically have a conversation about the latest neighborhood crime (or a new Polly's menu item) with the Pakistani dudes who own the store.  The Pak-men give me some free Dum Dums for the lads and send a greeting back to Bob. We pick up a bag of thai sticky rice at the Asia Star (maybe also a six pack of Singha at Boozemart if Steve is having a bad week) on our way home, wave to the elderly-walking-sisters, and let the boys race each other to find the letter "w" in the sidewalk poetry that marks the halfway point to home.  From the Italian quarter, to the Latin strip, from Lake Phalen to the Hmong American Family Center, from the brewery compound to Cora's Wings, we can walk our hard-earned street cred and feel welcome and among friends no matter where we go. That's home! 

Look for these and other Living on the Eastside topics to appear starting in September:
From the Land of Sky Blue Waters (Comes the Beer Refreshing!)
Why We Name Our Parks for Chicks
The Decline of Hope (Street)
Street Power Momma
Taco Van Pueblito
The Mystery of the Roosters 9 and 10
Viva Las Libras!
Did Morelli Know Yarusso?
Wall Poets

BlueCollar Hubby got roped into returning to the University for one hour of scheduled work--the details of why are so ridiculous and complex, if I went into them here the fabric of the world wide web would blow away into the cosmos and we would be forever disconnected from each other.

Anyway, Toe and I were playing catch when he left, so BCH did a sort of quiet sneak-out so as not to disturb Toe's conctration.  After a while, Toe did a double take to the street and yelled, "Hey, where's my car?!"  "Daddy drove it to work.  He went to the University for an hour,"  says I.  "That's awful!" exclaims Toe, "They took my daddy!."  They did indeed.

There is killer poetry in the packinghouse.  It is metallic and sharp: Armour, Cudahay, Swift.  These are the names of some of the fleshbarons, the stockyard titans whose heyday came at the cost of the stink, poverty and death of the1880s-1920s wave of European immigrant.  Does that sound too melodramatic?  Good!  I want you to feel the guilt when you have your skirt steak or spare ribs, to see the pained face of my German gentleman grandfather as he stoops to hatchet the haunches of cow after cow, overpumping his heart until it explodes in his chest, four sizes too big.  Then go home and read Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle  and Butcher Workmen by the Educational and Benevolent Association for Amalgamated Meat Cutters of North America.

No, don’t think of that.  That’s too much.  It’s the past, it’s done.  Let’s look forward, let’s think about today.  

Some of you have asked me what’s my deal with meat, so here it is.  No, I am not into killing animals, though I really harbor no ill will against all you carnivores who need your sinewy fix (these indulgences shall not be granted to those who club seals, eat veal or who encourage the use of BGH in dairy cattle—also anyone who works for Starkist Tuna).   Yes, I do occasionally eat meat and am not a strict vegan by any means, but I haven’t had the stomach for ingesting cow or pig in about 23 years.  I am just one of those people.  I shield my eyes in the meat aisle at Cub and my family, despite the greens and the beans, are probably iron poor.  I have nightmares about stranded polar bears, swimming themselves to death.  When I saw Old Yeller get shot, I threw up right in my dad’s lap.  Whale Wars makes me feel the violent vigilante within me, and yes, I have been called the Canine Harriet Tubman of the East Side for smuggling abused and neglected animals from their masters to freedom in the dark of night. Once, I gave Reuben’s cheese sandwich to a scrawny stray dog at the park and let Roo have Tootsie Rolls for lunch instead.  Call me a horrible mother, but the boy and the dog were happy, and it’s an unseemly burden to feel so much for God’s little critters. 

Now just leave me alone to go sob in my Boca burger…

There’s an awareness ribbon for just about everything these days.  There was a time a long while back when I callously sort of made fun of them.  Not mean in spirit, just being a wiseacre.  It just seemed like those ribbons were becoming the ”friendship bracelets” of disease and tragedy—common, tacky, passé.  My attitude and ignorance then is a thing I regret.  I keep quite a few ribbons nowadays, pinned to a card in my jewelry box where I can see them once in a while and wear them once in a while when I am thinking of a loved one whose life has been shaken by something they represent.  There’s a pink one for my friends who’ve survived breast cancer , a white one for lymphomas and leukemias --my best girlfriend has bravely lived with that diagnosis for a decade.  There’s a blood orange one with bright flames licking the sides to represent the torturous burning nerve pain suffered by those, including a bright firecracker young friend of mine, who battle with Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (RSD) .  The navy blue one is for the prevention of child abuse and sadly, I have dear ones in my life who’ve had to live through that too. Recently I gave some thought to the fact that the red ribbon of HIV/AIDS awareness  was really the big one that started it all, and lately you hardly see the red ribbons worn by anyone outside of Hollywood anymore.  Since more people than ever are living with HIV , I don’t think the disappearance of the ribbon is probably a good sign that the disease is dying out, but rather a sad sign that people are just forgetting about it.  Or maybe like friendship bracelets it’s just not popular to care about it anymore, which is more shocking than just sad. 

The awareness ribbon for autism  is covered in brightly-colored puzzle pieces. In fact, almost every organization that has something to do with autism education, research, and services has a jigsaw puzzle piece in its logo.  As with a lot of other complex, life-altering conditions growing more common in our world, medical science just hasn’t yet been able to figure out much of the mystery.  And if you know anything about me, you know the mystery illnesses are the hardest for me to get my fact-finding researcher’s head around, the most enraging, and the ones that both test my faith and remind me of the absolute providence of God.  And, of course, a couple of them are the most personal.

Ah, my boys, bless them.  May they grow up never knowing what that autism ribbon looks like because there is no more autism.  Maybe when I am gone and they are grown, they will find one, rusted, in an old box of my things.  Toe and Roo will exchange glances, maybe scratch their chins a bit, and come to the conclusion that they never knew just how much, once upon a time, their mom must have really loved puzzles.

By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited...
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I don't know what happens in the rest of the country, but in Minnesota, we're taught Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha at a tender age.  And of course, no Minnesota summer is complete without a trip to the The-Big-Sea-Water (or, at least, as some of our elders say, "Ta Dah-loot!").  Some day all of America, and then soon the world will discover the stunning beauty of this place it will likely become just another overcrowded tourist trap.  That will be a sad day, and I hope neither I nor my boys live to see it.  But for now, the North Shore of Lake Superior is very much the same as it was when BCH and I were little.  Tiny gems of towns along a scenic highway, state parks, hiking trails, cascading rivers, rock shops and pie shops and little waterfront getaways that allow pets and include wood for the firepit and s'mores ingredients in the nightly rate.  You can still board the old oretrain at Two Harbors or find agates in Castle Danger.  You can get your picture taken with a giant statue of a chicken or a bass or Paul Bunyan all within a few miles of majestic falls, towering glacial rocks and historic lighthouses.   For a short low-cost vacation there is nothing we love more than our own local little seacost.

One final note.  The author, overschooled in anthropology and history,  would be remiss without mentioning that, by the way, Hiawatha is not getting his due.  Yes, he is an epic character forever connected to this amazing lake we love.   But the part of Longfellow's poem we are taught  and memorize so often in gradeschool is just a snapshot of all Hiawatha really is (actually, it is the very end of his story).  When you have some time, or the inclination, go the link (or library or whatever) and read the whole Song of Hiawatha and you may really be surprised and moved by what you may have missed all these years. Hiawatha the traveler, warrior, hunter, sailor, fisherman, artist, lover, friend, husband, father, mourner, and tragic figure.  It is a neglected portrait of some (here fictionalized and romaniticzed) sad realities of what befell the Iriquois nation.